Line Revisited
by wellwritten
Summary: One shot. How do our heroes get rid of that pesky line?


Line Revisited

Author's Note: I own nothing, but greatly appreciate those who created these characters for me to play with.

"Booth, your assumption is not reasonable," Doctor Temperance Brennan argued as she and her partner, Special Agent Seeley Booth walked through the front door of her apartment.

"What? Why not?" Booth returned, pushing the door closed with his foot. He and his partner had picked up a pizza and beer and had decided on her place to finish some paperwork. Their most recent case had involved the murder of a cutthroat lawyer. After they had sorted through numerous suspects through his recent case history, the murderer was discovered to be another lawyer at his firm. The evidence, as usual, had proved the case but this time the motive was still unconfirmed, at least as far as Booth and Brennan were concerned.

"The woman you arrested reacted to some of her colleague's less than savory business practices and couldn't deal with the repercussions to the losing party. Hitting him with the paperweight was her way to resolve an unethical situation," she argued.

Booth rolled his eyes as he opened two bottles of beer and handed her one. "Bones, it was a crime of passion."

"She didn't have a relationship with him other than professional!" she insisted.

"It's not all black and white, Bones. Sometimes there's more to the picture than what you see."

"You mean sex? There is no evidence that Mr. Collins and Ms. Davies were more than—" she paused, searching for the right word.

"Partners?" Booth whispered near her ear on his way to put the rest of the pack of beer in the refrigerator.

"What I'm saying is that to have a crime of passion, there is an assumption of a sexual relationship but there are no signs to suggest that was the case."

"Passion is more than sex, Bones."

He looked over and could tell she was trying to reason out his statement. "Ok, what if you learned that one of the department heads at the Jeffersonian was stealing artifacts and selling them on the black market?"

"I would report what I knew to the Board of Directors or the President for appropriate investigation and reprisal."

"Right. Now, what if I had done the same thing?"

"You wouldn't do something like that."

"I know, but pretend I did. Maybe Parker was sick and I needed money for hospital bills."

"Is Parker okay?"

"Of course he is Bones, I'm trying to make a point."

Bones answered promptly, "I would talk to you about it and help you make a decision that adhered to the rules of the Institute."

"Ok, but what if you couldn't change my mind?"

"I would loan you the money you needed."

Booth shot her a look.

"Ok, I would try to reason with you, using logic to explain why you shouldn't do whatever it was you were planning that was against the rules."

"And if I didn't agree?"

"We would argue."

"Right. If Ms. Davies was just a colleague as she tried to convince us, she would have reported Collins to the State Board."

"Okay, so she was 'passionate', but maybe she was passionate about the law, about the justice to her firm's clients."

"Then why had she reported similar kinds of issues to the State Board in the past on other lawyers in her firm? She was a known whistleblower."

"Ah, so your theory is that she tried to resolve the matter herself because she had an emotional interest to the person and let her emotions overtake her good judgment."

"It's not a theory, Bones, it's a fact of human nature." Booth pulled her off the barstool next to him, and led her toward the living space. Instead of guiding her to the sofa, he pushed her against the wall and pressed his body against hers.

"Booth?!" she gasped.

"If you were in this situation and you didn't know me, what would you do? Tell me, don't show me," he quickly added.

"I would raise my knee and bring it up sharply to incapacitate you," she reasoned.

"You would handle the situation in a way that was best for you, without concern for my feelings." Booth took a step back and then moved forward again, nudging his hips to caress hers. "Now what?"

"Who are you now?"

"I'm me."

"I would look around to see what danger you thought I was in."

"No danger, we're in a completely safe place."

"Ok, then I would reassess the situation, maybe make some observations."

"Like?"

"Like that you smell good. Wait, I didn't mean to say that."

"No, that's good. You smell good too," he admitted.

"But the purpose of this demonstration is to prove something. What is it you're trying to prove?"

"That because you know me, you're likely to take more personal action, or at least, less painful action."

Bones wasn't convinced. "But what does your example of pinning me up to the wall have to do with passion?"

"We are the passion."

"You and me?"

"Yes, our partnership is chock full of passion."

"Passion for finding answers, using evidence to find who killed the bodies in our cases?"

"Sure, we share that, but we also are both very passionate about the law, about doing what is right. And, about each other."

"Because we're friends?"

"Aren't we?"

"Sure, you're my best friend." Bones paused for a moment, "Along with Angela, of course."

Booth smiled, "Of course. You're my best friend too, Bones."

"Are you going to keep me here all evening?" Bones looked to her sides at her wrists, which were still firmly pinned up against her living room wall.

"Do you want me to let you go?" Booth whispered.

"Unless you're trying to prove the point that our passion for each other is more than friendly."

"Do you think it is?" he asked, his tone balanced between the cocky flirtatiousness she was used to and a vulnerable seriousness that she wasn't.

"I asked you first."

They stared at each other for seconds, allowing their gazes to drop from the others' eyes to lips but nervous smiles jarred them back to reality. Booth let his arms drop and took a step backward. "I should probably get out of here and let you get some rest." A few seconds later, halfway down the hall he muttered, "Damn line."

"Goodnight Booth," Temperance Brennan called out to her partner, his form almost racing down toward the elevator with his libido dragging reluctantly behind.

The next day….

"Agent Booth?"

Booth looked up from the case file he'd been reviewing at the source of the interruption. It wasn't like he was getting a lot of work done anyway. He kept picturing Bones pushed up against the wall in her apartment and in his fantasy, unlike in the reality, he did not hear his inner voice echo that this was his partner and therefore untouchable. Damn moral upbringing. Damn Catholic guilt. Damn self-imposed line.

"You have a delivery," one of his agents said and placed a shirt box with a big red ribbon tied into a bow on the middle of his desk then turned and left.

The ribbon tugged off easily enough and when Booth pulled off the box lid, he found a small white notecard with a large cursive B on the front. He flipped open the card and immediately recognized his partner's handwriting. "Maybe you could use this, if you wanted to." Booth pulled at the white tissue paper and found an enormous pink eraser, almost as big as a piece of paper. And smiled.

The End


End file.
